Archive for the 'Iraq' Category

It seems as if half of the blog-0-sphere has spilled ink on the issue of young Private Scott Thomas Beauchamp and his ugly charges: mass graves in Baghdad (in my city we call these ‘cemeteries’), mental abuse of IED victims, and other such things (see here, here, here, here and here).  I have resisted as long as I can, and feel that I should have shared my thoughts long ago.  So now, TCJ weighs in on the young Private.

I think we should have an investigation.  The PAOs and lawyers could lead it.  Perhaps we should transfer Beauchamp.  Yes I suppose that’s right.  I suppose that’s the thing to do.  Wait.  Wait.  I’ve got a better idea.  Let’s transfer the whole squad off the base.  Let’s — on second thought, the whole division … let’s transfer ’em off the base.  Go on out there and get those boys down off the fence, they’re packing their bags.

Get me the President on the phone; tell him we’re surrendering our position in Baghdad.  Wait a minute.  We won’t call the President just yet.  Perhaps we ought to consider this a second.  Maybe we have a responsibility to this country to see that the men and women charged with its security are trained professionals.  Yes.  I’m certain I once read that somewhere.  And now I’m thinking that our idea of investigations and hand wringing and surrender, while expeditious, and certainly painless, might not be in a manner of speaking, the American way.

Young Private Beauchamp has had a lot of extra time on his hands.  He has had time to send e-mail, make telephone calls, and perhaps even eat ice cream.  After all, they have a dining hall, a place to actually sit and eat chow.  After considering surrender, I have changed my mind and I advocate training young Beauchamp.  Yes, that’s it!  There are Marines in Combat Outposts in Fallujah who have no chance to eat ice cream in dining halls.  They take showers by using baby wipes, and they have to burn their human waste in pits of stinking fire.  They have no electrical power, and no amenities.  They certainly don’t write e-mails home to use as articles for or against anything.  They are busy 20 hours out of the day, and sometimes 24 hours out of the day.

Young Beauchamp needs to be trained.  He badly needs to stay busy.  Young Beauchamp needs to be on patrol, picking up a rifle and standing a post, and contributing to Operation Iraqi Freedom.  Let’s send him out to the Combat Outposts where he will learn to work.  His unit badly needs discipline and motivation.  The United States of America has an obligation to instill these things and train young Private Beauchamp.  I am certain that I read that somewhere.

It seems as if half of the blog-0-sphere has spilled ink on the issue of young Private Scott Thomas Beauchamp and his ugly charges: mass graves in Baghdad (in my city we call these ‘cemeteries’), mental abuse of IED victims, and other such things (see here, here, here, here and here).  I have resisted as long as I can, and feel that I should have shared my thoughts long ago.  So now, TCJ weighs in on the young Private.

I think we should have an investigation.  The PAOs and lawyers could lead it.  Perhaps we should transfer Beauchamp.  Yes I suppose that’s right.  I suppose that’s the thing to do.  Wait.  Wait.  I’ve got a better idea.  Let’s transfer the whole squad off the base.  Let’s — on second thought, the whole division … let’s transfer ’em off the base.  Go on out there and get those boys down off the fence, they’re packing their bags.

Get me the President on the phone; tell him we’re surrendering our position in Baghdad.  Wait a minute.  We won’t call the President just yet.  Perhaps we ought to consider this a second.  Maybe we have a responsibility to this country to see that the men and women charged with its security are trained professionals.  Yes.  I’m certain I once read that somewhere.  And now I’m thinking that our idea of investigations and hand wringing and surrender, while expeditious, and certainly painless, might not be in a manner of speaking, the American way.

Young Private Beauchamp has had a lot of extra time on his hands.  He has had time to send e-mail, make telephone calls, and perhaps even eat ice cream.  After all, they have a dining hall, a place to actually sit and eat chow.  After considering surrender, I have changed my mind and I advocate training young Beauchamp.  Yes, that’s it!  There are Marines in Combat Outposts in Fallujah who have no chance to eat ice cream in dining halls.  They take showers by using baby wipes, and they have to burn their human waste in pits of stinking fire.  They have no electrical power, and no amenities.  They certainly don’t write e-mails home to use as articles for or against anything.  They are busy 20 hours out of the day, and sometimes 24 hours out of the day.

Young Beauchamp needs to be trained.  He badly needs to stay busy.  Young Beauchamp needs to be on patrol, picking up a rifle and standing a post, and contributing to Operation Iraqi Freedom.  Let’s send him out to the Combat Outposts where he will learn to work.  His unit badly needs discipline and motivation.  The United States of America has an obligation to instill these things and train young Private Beauchamp.  I am certain that I read that somewhere.

From Iraq by an AFP stringer:

Another scene from an AFP stringer:

These pictures were taken during combat operations with the 2nd Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment, Golf Company, 3rd Platoon, fighting in Fallujah, and were available in the public domain via Yahoo.  Yet, I have a personal connection to these photographs.

The Investigating Officer’s Report on accused Marine Lance Corporal Justin Sharratt contains more than mere assessment of the charges against Sharratt.  The following conclusion is transcribed from the report.

Due to the disparate accounts, it is tempting to simply conclude that this case should be tried to either exonerate LCpl Sharratt or convict him of a crime.  However, to adopt the government’s position that because there are two differing accounts, a general court-martial is warranted is an abdication of the necessary process of determining whether reasonable grounds exist to warrant a court-martial.  It is not as simple as stating there are two accounts so a trial is necessary.  Analysis of these two versions must provide reasonable grounds that the Government version of events may be true.  In analyzing the evidence, I read several hundred pages of interviews, documents and statements, (IE 33-105).  Ultimately, there is only one statement by an eye witness to the events, LCpl Sharratt, and his version of events is strongly corroborated by independent forensic analysis of the death scene.  The government version is unsupported by independent evidence and while each statement has within it corroboration, several factors together reduces the credibility of such statements to incredible.  In addition, the statements of the Iraqis are unclear, contradictory in part, and simply state self-interested conclusion as to what occurred within house 4.  Finally, to believe the government version of facts is to disregard clear and convincing evidence to the contrary and sets a dangerous precedent that, in my opinion, may encourage others to bear false witness against Marines as a tactic to erode public support of the Marine Corps and mission in Iraq.  Even more dangerous is the potential that a Marine may hesitate at the critical moment when facing the enemy.

Much effort during the Article 32 focused on whether the victims were insurgents.  Although determining if they were may have some bearing on the credibility of the Iraqi witnesses and may support that LCpl Sharratt did perceive a hostile situation within house 4, such determinations are not necessary to conclude that LCpl Sharratt is truthful in his account.  From as early as February 2006 LCpl Sharratt’s statements are supported by the forensic evidence.  It is likely that members of the Ahmed family were either insurgents on 19 November 2005, or that they were attempting to defend their house and family when Marines entered house 4 uninvited and unannounced.  On that fateful afternoon, Jasib heard someone enter house 4.  He investigated with his AK-47 in his hands.  LCpl Sharratt saw him and perceived him as a threat.  Using his training he responded instinctively, assaulting into the room emptying his pistol.  Whether this was a brave act of combat against the enemy or tragedy of misperception born out of conducting combat with an enemy that hides among innocents, LCpl Sharratt’s actions were in accord with the rules of engagement and use of force.

A reading of the document reveals that investigating officer Lt. Col. Paul Ware obviously doesn’t believe the government’s version of events.  He points to many inconsistent reports, only two of which are outlined below:

• LCpl. Sharratt’s SAW jammed upon engagement of the men in house 4.  Jamming is a known problem in the M16A2/M4/SAW, as I have discussed before (after shooting an M16 and dealing with this problem).  The use of a 9 mm pistol to “perform an execution” means that a group of Marines decided to use the least powerful weapon in their arsenal, Lt. Col. Ware says, concluding that this is not credible.  As an editorial comment, I would add that I know a highly skilled SAW gunner who tells me that he can undo the effects of a jam in his SAW within 5 seconds or less.  To believe that a gangland style execution occurred while a SAW gunner left his weapon jammed and used his pistol is so ridiculous that one wonders why the government lawyers would have actually put such an idea in print before a military tribunal.  This surely must be embarrassing for them.
• The Iraqis reported that the “one with the pistol” was “in charge.”  But the problem is that the one with the pistol was Lance Corporal Sharratt, and with him were a Corporal and a Staff Sergeant.  How many readers who are either former or active duty military believe that a Corporal and Staff Sergeant would take orders from a Lance Corporal?  Again, this surely must be embarrassing for the prosecuting attorney.

The relatives of the deceased Iraqis didn’t want the bodies exhumed for forensic analysis, but would rather “forgive” the Marines.  In Iraq: Land of Lies and Deceipt (a press report concerning a similar British trial), I noted a contractor’s report about his experiences with Iraqis and honesty.

In Islamic and Arab traditions, blood money is the money paid by the killer or his family or clan to the family or the clan of the victim. It is unlawful for a believer to kill a believer except if it happens by accident. And he who kills a believer accidentally must free one Muslim slave and pay ‘Diyat’ to the heirs of the victim except if they forgive him. The tradition finds repeated endorsement in Islamic tradition; several instances are recorded in the Hadith, which are the acts of the Prophet Mohammad.

The Blood – Money tradition has found its way into legislation in several Islamic countries, including Saudi Arabia, Iran and Pakistan. Some of these countries also define, by lawful legislation, a hierarchy of (cash) rates for the lives of people….

Are lies being told to obtain blood money payments? Some insight comes in this response to the collapse of the British trial by Stephan Holland, a Baghdad-based US contractor.

I’ve been in Iraq for about 18 months now performing construction management. It is simply not possible for me to exaggerate the massive amounts of lies we wade through every single day. There is no way – absolutely none – to determine facts from bulls*** ….

It is not even considered lying to them; it is more akin to being clever – like keeping your cards close to your chest. And they don’t just lie to westerners. They believe that appearances–saving face–are of paramount importance. They lie to each other all the time about anything in order to leverage others on a deal or manipulate an outcome of some sort or cover up some major or minor embarrassment. It’s just how they do things, period.

I’m not trying to disparage them here. I get along great with a lot of them. But even among those that I like, if something happens (on the job) I’ll get 50 wildly different stories, every time. There’s no comparison to it in any other part of the world where I’ve worked. The lying is ubiquitous and constant.

Lt. Col. Ware has suspicion for the Iraqi testimony as evidenced by the report.  At the end of the investigating officer’s report, Lt. Col. Ware makes the recommendation to drop the charges, and that Lance Corporal Sharratt be given testimonial immunity and ordered to cooperate with any ongoing investigations.  This last part might be pro forma and routine.  If Lt. Col. Ware believes his account and disbelieves the government’s account, then he believes that LCpl Sharratt will not bring anything forward that would call his assessment into question.

Why?  Lt. Col. Ware goes further than merely saying that there is no case against LCpl Sharratt.  His insightful report destroys the government’s case in general, not just with respect to LCpl Sharratt.  It does not seem possible to me that after this rebuke of the government, the cases against the remaining Haditha Marines would proceed.  As defense attorney, the first thing I would do would be to trot out the report by Lt. Col. Ware and demand that his assessment be answered line by line.

This report should end the case against the Haditha Marines, but given that the prosecution was willing to embarrass themselves with the prosecution of Sharratt to begin with, anything can happen.

This is just in from the New York Times.

While Washington is mired in political debate over the future of Iraq, the American command here has prepared a detailed plan that foresees a significant American role for the next two years.

The classified plan, which represents the coordinated strategy of the top American commander and the American ambassador, calls for restoring security in local areas, including Baghdad, by the summer of 2008. “Sustainable security

Soon after the invasion of Iraq, some thought that the British presence in Basra might very well join the short but remarkable catalog of counterinsurgency victories in history.  The British did what they have always done, including implementation of “soft” rules of engagement.  More than a little ridicule has been wasted and ink has been spilled in the excoriation of U.S. rules of engagement, which even though seen by us as lacking the robustness to win OIF at times, are “harder” than the British ROE.  Juan Cole gives us a preening communication from a British reservist from July of 2005.  “One aspect that is rarely discussed is the vast difference between the British and American rules of engagement. You will quickly respond by saying ‘oh but things are so much safer in the South because it is predominantly Shia’. Yes but if we used the American rules of engagement then I am positive that there would be far far more attacks against us. It is ridiculous for British soldiers to be ordered not to overtake any of the huge American convoys on the Kuwait-Baghdad motorway because they risk being shot at by the Americans!”

This optimism continued until the forcible rescue of two British special forces operators who had been arrested by the Iraqi police in Basra.  But the proud British ROE may have been part of the problem.

At home, Britons were stunned by the graphic footage of their soldiers being assaulted in a city thought to be “safe,” especially in comparison to the blood-soaked urban areas of the Sunni Triangle which dominate news coverage emanating out of Iraq. The violent imagery was only the latest and most troubling indication of the British military’s failure in Basra and its environs, a disastrous turn of events which seemed unthinkable two years ago, when British troops were welcomed into Basra with relatively open arms.

The root of this failure stems from the very strategy that was once lauded as the antidote for insurgent violence. Known as the “soft approach,” the British strategy in southern Iraq centered on non-aggressive, nearly passive responses to violent flare-ups. Instead of raids and street battles, the British concentrated on building relationships with local leaders and fostering consensus among Iraqi politicos. In Basra, the British were quick to build and expand training programs for a city police force. As a symbol of their faith in stability-by-civility, the British military took to donning the soft beret while on patrol, avoiding the connotations of war supposedly raised by the American-style Kevlar helmets.

In the immediate aftermath of the 2003 invasion, this “soft” approach seemed remarkably successful, especially when juxtaposed with the chaos that had engulfed other parts of Iraq. Basra seemed to adapt relatively well to the new order of things, with little in the way of street battles or casualties. Both the British and American media — ever-ready to point out the comparable failures of American arms — energetically hailed the peaceful and stable atmosphere in Basra as a significant indicator of the virtues of the British approach, upholding it as the tactical antithesis to the brutal and aggressive Yanks. The Dallas Morning News reported in 2003 that military experts from Britain were already boasting that U.S. forces in Iraq could “take a cue from the way their British counterparts have taken control of Basra.” Charles Heyman, editor of the highly-respected defense journal Jane’s, asserted: “The main lesson that the Americans can learn from Basra and apply to Baghdad is to use the ‘softly-softly’ approach.”

The reporting also featured erudite denunciations of the rigid rules of engagement that governed the United States military, while simultaneously championing British outreach. Ian Kemp, a noted British defense expert, suggested in November 2004 that the “major obstacle” in past U.S. occupations and peacekeeping efforts was their inability to connect with locals due to the doctrinal preeminence of force protection. In other words, had Americans possessed the courage to interface with the Iraqi, they might enjoy greater success.

It did not take long before the English press allowed the great straw man of a violent American society to seep into their explanations for the divergent approaches. The Sunday Times of London proclaimed “armies reflect their societies for better or for worse. In Britain, guns are frowned upon — and British troops faced with demonstrations in Northern Ireland must go through five or six stages, including a verbal warning as the situation gets progressively more nasty, before they are allowed to shoot. In America, guns are second nature.” Such flimsy and anecdotal reasoning — borne solely out of classical European elitist arrogance — tinged much of the reporting out of Basra.

AS A RESULT OF THE EFFUSIVE media celebration, even some in the British military began believing their own hype, with soldiers suggesting to reporters in May 2003 that the U.S. military should “look to them for a lesson or two.” As a British sergeant told the Christian Science Monitor: “We are trained for every inevitability and we do this better than the Americans.” According to other unnamed British military officials, America had “a poor record” at keeping the peace while Basra only reinforced the assertion that the British maintain “the best urban peacekeeping force in the world.”

Not too long after this incident and due to the degradation in security in Basra, the British consulate was evacuated in January of 2006.

The British consulate in Basra will evacuate its heavily defended building in the next 24 hours over concerns for the safety of its staff.

Despite a large British military presence at the headquarters in Basra Palace, a private security assessment has advised the consul general and her staff to leave the building after experiencing regular mortar attacks in the last two months.

The move will be seen as a huge blow to progress in Iraq and has infuriated senior military commanders. They say it sends a message to the insurgents that they are winning the battle in pushing the British out of the southern Iraqi capital, where several British soldiers have died and dozens have been injured.

British troop levels have dropped precipitously through Operation Iraq Freedom, from around 45,000 in March and April of 2003, to less than 20,000 by May of 2003, and then to around 7000 by the end of 2006.  The British announced another pullback from Basra in February of 2007, conveying their intent to reduce forces to approximately 5,500 by the end of the summer.  The pullback was not announced in a vacuum.  The situation in Basra was calamitous as reported by NPR.

“The problem is, in most of these four provinces, the British essentially gave up,” says Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Cordesman says U.K. forces lost control of two key provinces — Basra and Maisan — after elections in early 2005 and 2006 that brought a Shiite majority to power.

“Once they came under control, the Shiites firmly were in charge of virtually the entire area and there was little the British could do about it,” Cordesman says.

Richard Beeston, diplomatic editor of The Times of London recently returned from a visit to Basra, his first since 2003. He says in 2003, British soldiers were on foot patrol, drove through town in unarmored vehicles and fished in the waters of the Shaat al Arab on their days off. He says the changes he saw four years later are enormous.

“Nowadays all troop movement in and out of the city are conducted at night by helicopter because it’s been deemed too dangerous to go on the road and its dangerous to fly choppers during the day,” he says.

Beeston says during his latest visit, he noticed a map of the city in one of the military briefing rooms. About half of the city was marked as no-go areas.

British headquarters are mortared and rocketed almost everynight.

This is indicative of many parts of southern Iraq, says Wayne White, a former State department middle east intelligence officer. White says the south is riddled with rival Shiite groups vying for power, and roving criminal gangs because there’s nothing to stop them.

“There’s virtually nothing down there in the way of governance that answers to Baghdad in an effective way,” White says. “There are mayors, there are police but in many cases these people have no loyalty to Baghdad, operate along with the militias, have sympathy with them.”

We must disagree with part of this assessment (” … little the British could do about it,” and ” … there’s nothing to stop them”).  The U.S. forces are responsible for Anbar, home of the Sunnis deposed from power in the invasion.  The British, while left with fewer troops with which to work, were responsible for control of the area in which the new power lived – the Shi’a, saved from the tyranny of the previous regime.  In a clearer statement concerning the British effort and its affects, Anthony Cordesman of The Center for Strategic and International Studies, in a study entitled The British Defeat in the South, speaks openly about the situation in Basra.

The British announcement of force cuts in Southern Iraq reflects a set of realities on the ground that has dominated southeastern Iraq for more than two years. Southeastern Iraq has long been under the de facto control of SCIRI and Sadr factions. The British effectively lost any opportunity to shape a secular and nationalist Basra in the summer of 2003, and the US defeat of the Sadr militia in March and April 2004 never extended to the southeast and Basra area.

The British won some tactical clashes in Maysan and Basra in May-November 2004, but Operation Telic’s tactical victories over the Sadrists did not stop Islamists from taking steadily more local political power and controlling security at the neighborhood level when British troops were not present.

Two problems have become apparent: force size, and rules of engagement.  The calls for complete withdrawal of British forces have gotten more voiciferous, declaring that “The British troops’ withdrawal rate “should be determined not by the security situation – which allows militias and insurgents to determine our withdrawal – but by the state of training of the Iraqi forces,” said the commission, which was formed in the manner of the U.S. Baker-Hamilton commission, also known as the Iraq Study Group (ISG), which submitted a similar report to U.S. President George W. Bush in December 2006, urging Washington to change course on Iraq.  The report further added that there were “no good options left” in Iraq, indicating that the British government has to “redefine its objectives.”

The redefinition of objectives will likely involve focus on force protection, as British fatalities per unit has increased above U.S. fatalities per unit.

For the first time since the war began, British soldiers are being killed in Iraq at a proportionally greater rate than U.S. soldiers, it was reported.

The Royal Statistical Society analyzed death rates for the two armies between Feb. 5 and June 24, reported The Sunday Telegraph. During that time, Britain lost 23 of its 5,500 soldiers, while the United States lost 463 of its 165,000 soldiers, the newspaper reported.

Increased violence in the southern city of Basra, where most of the British troops are serving, was responsible for the proportional increase in deaths, said Society spokeswoman Sheila Bird.

The findings have led to more calls for the British government to withdraw its troops from Iraq, the newspaper reported.

British military and political leaders have come to regard the war in Iraq as a “lost cause,” a senior British army commander told the British newspaper.

By May of 2007 the violence had reached a fevered pitch, with rival Shi’a gangs fighting for control of the oil-rich city.

Basra, the richest city in Iraq and gateway to the Gulf, could erupt into all-out war between rival Shia groups seeking control of its vast oil wealth as British forces prepare to draw down.

The power struggle between factions of the Shia majority that has dominated Iraqi politics since the first post-war general elections in 2005 threatens to affect oil exports accounting for virtually all of Iraq’s income.

In the latest development of a turf war that has all the ingredients of a gangster movie set in 1920s Chicago, rivals of the provincial governor fell one vote short of voting him out of office last month but have pledged to keep up the standoff.

Basra, Iraq’s second largest city, is more or less free of the car bombs and the violence between Shias and Sunni Arabs raging in central Iraq, but it has descended into a chaos of its own. Sporadic militia battles, endemic corruption and death threats now scar the once tranquil port.

“Everyone’s trying to grab resources and make a quick profit without considering a long-term programme or attempting to establish a power base for the future,

Bing West has another good commentary at the Small Wars Journal Blog entitled Winning the Narrative.  There are two categories of Iraq observers, says West.  The first is the anti-terror camp.  This camp believes that the indigenous Sunnis rejected al Qaeda’s religious extremism when it became obvious that they could not wrest power from the Shi’a, and didn’t want proponents of radical religious ideas as their rulers.  West observes:

It’s conventional wisdom now to say that Anbar improved because the Sunni tribes aligned against al Qaeda. True enough, but an incomplete explanation. With inadequate manpower, the Marines and Army National Guard and active duty soldiers persisted year after year with gritty, relentless patrolling that convinced the tribes the American military was, as one tribal leader said to me, “the strongest tribe”. Hence the tribes could turn against al Qaeda, knowing they had the strongest tribe standing behind them.

West echoes my sentiments in Al Qaeda, Indigenous Sunnis and the Insurgency in Iraq, where I said that:

The coup is not merely that the tribal chiefs and their people are cooperating with U.S. forces.  It is larger than that.  The coup is that the insurgency, properly defined as indigenous fighters rather than terrorists and foreign fighters – those who were previously pointing a gun towards U.S. troops – are now pointing them at the terrorists.  Not only have many of them made peace with the U.S., but in a development just as important, the U.S. forces have made peace with them.  This has been accomplished with the new difficulty introduced by globalization (foreign fighters), and the new difficulty introduced by religious fanaticism (suicide bombers), and the new difficulty introduced by technology (stand off weapons such as roadside bombs).  This is a counterinsurgency tour de force, and as time judges this victory it will take its rightful place in the great military campaigns of world history.

The second is the sectarian camp, which believes that intransigent hostility between Shi’ites and Sunnis has caused a civil war, or more correctly, will blow up into a fully realized civil war upon the departure of U.S. troops, whenever that is.  Terrorism is still a major problem, but underneath this lies a current of sectarian animosity the depth and strength of which is not completely known (The Strategy Page has an article up on the possibility of an all-out civil war if the U.S. leaves.  Civil war has not happened yet, though it could).

The narrative, says West, has been inconsistent thus far, leading to the failure to support a single narrative.  To this, we respond the following.

The problem to which Mr. West alludes is greater than he credits in his insightful analysis.  Only hours after authoring Al Qaeda, Indigenous Sunnis and the Insurgency in Iraq, in which I claimed that the majority of the insurgency in Anbar had been indigenous Sunnis (while also discussing the nuances of the superimposition of terrorism by al Qaeda in Mesopotamia), and in which I claimed that the counterinsurgency victory by the Marines in Anbar would go down as the greatest in military history, an intelligence specialist wrote me to concur with the piece, saying that “if anyone thinks that al Qaeda controls more than 10% of the insurgency they’re crazy.”

Yet we have our Commander in Chief saying that the people we’re fighting in Iraq are the same people who were responsible for 9/11 (an assertion that correctly gets no traction with the American public), and the Multinational Force PAO office issuing thousands of press releases, many of which refer to degrading the ability of al Qaeda to conduct operations, and some of which should have been discussing the Iraqi insurgency or AAS.  Al Qaeda has become a surrogate for all of the enemy, and clear narrative has been sacrificed on the altar of convenience.  It is too difficult to explain what we are doing to the American people, or so it must be believed.

Think Aaron Copland and his brilliant “Americana” style compositions.  The majestic, broad, moving, sweeping, engaging and unforgettable movements of instruments together to create the emotional experience of literally hearing his thoughts.  We need this in our narrative, and it has been absent for so long that it may be irrecoverable.  But there is more.  We need the narrative to be smart, intelligent and sophisticated.  We need a national narrative to explain the “long war” to the American public.  I would even settle for pragmatic at this point, straight from Ralph Peters.  In the event of a precipitous departure, the following would occur:

1. After suffering a strategic defeat, al-Qaeda-in-Iraq comes back from the dead …
2. Iran establishes hegemony over Iraq’s southern oil fields and menaces the other Persian Gulf producers.
3. Our troops will have died in vain.
4. A slaughter of the innocents.

I recently attended a funeral for an elderly person, and the elderly there counted many World War II veterans.  Each one wanted to know my son’s location, billet, MOS, and unit.  As they talked, each one said to me that although my son may be coming home soon, God willing that is, the war will not be over for a long, long time.  And they were not referring to the war in Iraq.  They knew.  In their eyes you could tell.  They knew that we are in the “long war.”

Our national narrative has failed to match the magnitude and stakes in the long war.  But rest assurred, the enemy’s narrative has no such weakness.  Not all of the future enemies of America in the long war will fight for religious reasons, and perhaps not even the majority.  I have gone on record saying that the insurgency in Anbar was primarily indigenous Sunni, and that the strategy to settle with them was brilliant and will go down as the template for future COIN campaigns.  But for some of the enemy, the narrative is clear, and it is powerful.

“With al Qaeda, we are in a global fight between two worlds,” he said. “Al Qaeda is not a territorial organization. It’s not Hamas, it’s not Hizballah and it’s not the Taliban.”

Instead, it should be compared to the Marxist revolutionary movements of the 1960s and 1970s that attracted young Westerners to fight in places like the jungles of South America. Al Qaeda, Roy said, is in fact part of a global revolutionary tradition.

“Today the narrative of the revolt is religious. Forty years ago it was Marxist. Today it is religious and particularly Muslim. But we are still in a global revolt against the system, without having a clear vision of an alternative system,” he said.

Roy contended that al Qaeda members are anti-American only because America incarnates the “world order” — and this “world order is perceived as unjust.”

Khadija Mohsen-Finan, a specialist on the Middle East from the French Institute of Foreign Relations in Paris (IFRI), identified al Qaeda terrorists as “people who don’t think they have their place in globalization.”

Bing has written a smart commentary that is “gilding the lilly.”  Before we can even hope to develop a narrative of Operation Iraqi Freedom, we need to develop a national narrative.  National leadership is needed, and so far it has not been forthcoming.

The insurgency in the Anbar Province, while being called “al Qaeda” in hundreds of press releases, has had a significant part indigenous Sunni fighters.   Before pacification of Anbar could occur, the following two things were necessary: (a) robust kinetic operations to rout al Qaeda and Ansar al Sunna, and (b) settling with erstwhile indigenous insurgents, formerly enemies of U.S. forces, and forthwith allies in Operation Iraqi Freedom.  Sources from Anbar are cited specifying the ‘breakdown’ of the insurgency; the counterinsurgency ‘tour de force’ involved in the pacification of Anbar is discussed, and Shi’a refusal to reconcile is discussed as the largest remaining hurdle to ending OIF.

At the Small Wars Journal blog, Malcolm Nance has a provocative article entitled Al Qaeda in Iraq – Heros, Boogeymen or Puppets?   Nance’s article has been highly criticized as has a recent opinion piece at the New York Times.  These articles are part of a “renewed push by the antiwar crowd to discredit the idea that the war in Iraq has any real connection to the war on terror,” it has been said.

At TCJ we understand The Long War, but believe that motive cannot be ascribed to these articles based on our reading of the content.  The schema presented in them is either right or wrong (or perhaps wrong but containing nuggets of truth), and it is important to ascertain who the enemy is and determine the appropriate strategy based on identification of the enemy.  High strung reactions to probing questions and alternative viewpoints do not significantly add to our understanding, and are thus not very helpful.

We agree with much the core of Nance’s assessment of the insurgency (with qualifications and caveats, and with insurgency differentiated from the terrorists, an important distinction that will be discussed later), while holding that the solution he proffers is a false dilemma.  The entire article is worth reading, but the core of his analysis is contained in these few paragraphs.

It is well documented that the Sunni insurgency is composed of three wings of insurgents. It is composed of the nationalist Former Regime Loyalists (FRLs) and their former military elements (FREs). This force may be upwards to 29,000 active combatants carrying out over 100 unconventional attacks per day using improvised explosive devices, rockets and automatic weapons ambushes. The FRL-originated Jaysh al-Mujahideen is composed of former Saddam Fedayeen, Special Republican Guard intelligence officers, former-Ba’athists, Sunni volunteers and their families. The second wing is the nationalist Iraqi Religious Extremists (IREs). These are forces including the Islamic Army of Iraq, Ansar al-Sunnah and other smaller groups, which may total approximately 5,000 fighters, sprinkled throughout western, central and northern Iraq. On occasion come into the conversation when one of their attacks is particularly daring or when the coalition claims it is negotiating their departure from the battlefront. Inevitably these “lesser

I have tried to report the good and bad concerning rules of engagement, and most recently reported on an instance of what I consider to be robust ROE, entitled Recon by Fire.  In keeping with the main theme of comprehensive honesty, we should briefly discuss a recent contrary viewpoint reported in the Mental Health Advisory Team (MHAT) IV, Operation Iraqi Freedom 05-07, Final Report, 17 November 2006, Office of the Surgeon, Multi-National Force Iraq, and Office of the Surgeon General, United States Army Medical Command.

More than one third of all Soldiers and Marines continue to report being in threatening situations where they were unable to respond due to Rules of Engagement (ROE).  In interviews, Soldiers reported that Iraqis would throw gasoline-filled bottles (i.e., Molotov Cocktails) at their vehicles, yet they were prohibited from responding with force for nearly a month until the ROE were changed.  Soldiers also reported they are still not allowed to respond with force when Iraqis drop large chunks of concrete blocks from second story buildings or overpasses on them when they drive by.  Every groups of Soldiers and Marines interviewed reported that they felt the existing ROE tied their hands, preventing them from doing what needed to be done to win the war (pages 13 – 14).

The entire report is worth serious study by professional military and policy-makers.  To be precise, I do not believe that the rules of engagement were “changed” to allow the engagement of insurgents who hurled Molotov Cocktails at them.  The most recent version is CJCSI 3121.01B, and it is more likely than not that a field grade officer felt that he could not make the decision on principles of application of the existing ROE and a JAG had to be consulted.

And also to be precise, I would not have consulted a JAG if I had been that field grade officer.

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In an interesting discussion thread at the Small Wars Journal, an LA Times article is linked that examines the effectiveness of combat outposts.

The neighborhood outposts that the U.S. military launched with great fanfare in Baghdad early this year were supposed to put more American patrols on the streets and make residents feel safer. But some soldiers stationed at the posts and Iraqis who live nearby say they are doing the opposite.

The outposts, along with joint U.S.-Iraqi security stations, form a cornerstone of the current Iraq strategy. Following a classic counterinsurgency tenet, military planners are trying to take U.S. forces out of their distant, sprawling military bases and into the day-to-day lives of Iraqis.

Here there is an unspoken problem that they are trying to address with this tactic, and it is the Ratio of Support to Infantry.  Infantry has always been out on patrol, raids, peacekeeping, nonkinetic operations, constabulary operations, etc.  The overgrown fraction of support troops, at least many of them, have not made it off of FOBs.  Combat outposts will not solve that problem.  Continuing:

Although senior U.S. commanders and mid-level officers say they believe the bases are starting to work, many soldiers stationed at the outposts are doubtful, arguing that the burden of protecting the bases means they spend less time on the streets.

“They say we are spending more time ‘in sector,’ which we are doing — we live here,” said Spc. Tyrone Richardson, 24, a member of Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 8th Cavalry, that operates in the east Baghdad neighborhood of Ubaidi, outside Sadr City. “But we aren’t spending the time patrolling.”

Iraqis who live nearby say they feel less safe now, because many of the bases have quickly become magnets for rocket and mortar attacks. When attacks miss the troops, they often hit Iraqi civilians.

For some, the risk of rocket attacks might be worth it if the Americans were driving away Shiite Muslim militias that many say act as death squads. But some junior soldiers say that Al Mahdi militiamen loyal to anti-U.S. Shiite cleric Muqtada Sadr are able to conduct more “patrols” of the area than can the U.S. Army.

“The Mahdi army goes around to the houses more than we do,” said Pfc. John Evans, 21, a member of 1-8 Cavalry’s Alpha Company.

When advocates of the current troop buildup pushed the U.S. to more aggressively adopt counterinsurgency tactics, their main criticism was directed at the sprawling bases where troops were stationed.

Moving soldiers to smaller bases inside Baghdad, according to the counterinsurgency experts, would allow them to spend more time interacting with the population. Regular contact with U.S. troops would make people feel safer, the main mission of counterinsurgency operations.

In practice, however, the outpost strategy has a key flaw: As many as half of the soldiers there at any one time are dedicated to protecting the outpost.

Here we may observe a fundamental law of geometry.  Let’s take a cube, 4 X 4 X 4 units.  Its volume is 64 cubic units.  Its surface area is computed to be 96 square units.  Now take the same volume, except divided into 1 X 1 X 1 units, and the surface area for the same volume is computed to be 384 square units, four times the previous surface area.  This is why ice melts faster when crushed into smaller pieces.  An analogous point can be made about the perimeter, where the perimeter of the contiguous square is 16 units, and the perimeter of the divided area (1 X 1) is 64 units, or four times the circumference for the contiguous area.  The point is that there is an economy of scale.  The same volume (or area) divided into smaller units gives a larger surface area to volume ratio (or circumference to area ratio).  The larger FOBs require less to provide force protection than smaller combat outposts.  On the other hand, the situation is worse than described by this little mathematical example, since the FOBs are not shut down with the emergence of the combat outposts.  Force protection is made extemely difficult with the emergence of combat outposts.  Continuing:

“In my tactical opinion, the combat outpost hasn’t worked,” said one junior officer stationed in east Baghdad. “It’s not a bad idea, but we are doing it wrong. We have a bigger presence but we have less boots on the ground. You only have one platoon that can maneuver tactically at a time.”

Many of the soldiers interviewed asked to speak anonymously because senior officers disapprove of noncommissioned officers and junior officers questioning military strategy.

Many of the large bases outside the city are protected by support soldiers or security units not available for the outposts.

Before the outposts were created, some companies maintained a constant presence on the streets, with each of their platoons doing two eight-hour patrols a day.

“Before, we would do two patrols a day, of six to eight hours a day. There was almost always a patrol on the street. Now we patrol just 12 times in a month,” an experienced noncommissioned officer said. “That’s not a lot of interaction with the people. And it’s problematic if the intent of this strategy is to interact with locals.”

As a result of the decrease in the number of patrols, some officers say, they are not even able to keep militia elements out of the neighborhoods immediately surrounding the outposts.

“I just know it’s not much different than it was seven months ago,” said one junior officer in east Baghdad. “We are retaking the same ground every day.”

David Kilcullen, the senior counterinsurgency advisor for the U.S. military command in Iraq, said not all the outposts were being used correctly. The outposts, he said, should not be mini-camps but rather a patrol base used for breaks between walking the neighborhood.

“You should not think of it as a nest where you retreat to and hunker down in,” said Kilcullen, a lieutenant colonel in the Australian army reserves.

On balance, he said, the concept is working and is helping to protect Iraqi neighborhoods.

“We are covering an area continuously rather than just visiting it,” Kilcullen said. “If you do not provide continuous coverage, that creates opportunities for insurgents to come in and kill the population.”

Still, other problems remain. Although one purpose of the outposts is to allow Iraqis to walk up to Americans and give them tips, the little bases are generally imposing structures ringed by machine-gun nests and high concrete walls.

1st Lt. Luis Marin, 31, Charlie Company’s executive officer, acknowledges that the need to put many of the soldiers on guard duty and erect high walls around the outposts presents challenges. But he says it is unavoidable.

“The No. 1 priority has to be to protect the outpost, and you have to use soldiers for force protection,” he said. “It almost looks like we are pushing people away, and that is not what we want to do.”

There is no doubt the outposts face threats. When what GIs ironically call “Happy Hour” begins each afternoon in east Baghdad, the soldiers of the 1-8 Cavalry seek cover in a concrete building from the rocket and mortar fire from Shiite militias.

Because the rockets are not accurate, after each attack soldiers check to see whether any residents have been hurt.

Charlie Company has been delivering fuel and water to a man who was seriously injured in an attack. After a recent visit to the injured man, Sgt. 1st Class Alberto Gordillo, 31, was confronted by another resident who lived near the site from which militants were firing rockets at the post.

“Why are you shooting at my house? Why shoot at us? We are not shooting at you,” the man said. Gordillo tried to calm him, and explain what had happened.

“If they shoot mortar rounds at us, if we positively ID them, we will shoot back. If we don’t, they won’t stop,” he said. “But we are not aiming at your house.”

In some Sunni neighborhoods in west Baghdad, such as Ghazaliya, some residents who were initially excited about the outposts and joint security stations have grown disgruntled. They believe the Americans are doing too little to stop attacks by Shiite militias and are intent on targeting only Sunni insurgents.

“The Americans won’t come out to help unless they have orders,” said Abdul Rahman, 29, a chemist. “They don’t prevent the Mahdi army from attacking us.”

In Shiite neighborhoods, residents say the opposite, arguing that the outposts are targeting Shiite militias, prompting militants to strike back.

“Since they started firing mortar rounds at the outpost, it has become very chaotic,” said Ali Bahadli, a clothing salesman in his 20s who lives near the U.S. outpost in the Baladiyat neighborhood of east Baghdad. “When the Americans go out, I say, ‘Here comes trouble.’

“Some hate the Americans for the mortars. Others hate the Mahdi army,” he said. “I blame the Americans. These mortars start when they go out and arrest someone.”

Lt. Col. Jeffrey Sauer, the commander of the 1-8 Cavalry, said the benefit of the troops’ presence is seen in the increased numbers of warnings of possible roadside bombs and information about suspected insurgents that is being called in to the tip lines.

“Six months ago, my ability to gain intelligence in the neighborhoods was very minimal,” Sauer said. Now, based on “information provided to my soldiers on patrol, information through the tips line,” he said, “I have between 10 and 20 good pieces of information a day. That is a significant difference.”

To some of the soldiers, however, the quality of the intelligence seems thin. They say many of the tips are actually traps aimed at hitting them with bombs as they leave the post to check out the information.

Soldiers who defend the use of the outposts say their chief advantage is cutting down the time it takes to help patrols that have been hit in roadside bombings.

“The theory was to get us more hands-on with the people, more face time, and reduce our response time. That has been beneficial — when the unit is hit, we can respond quickly,” said Sgt. Scott Snyder, 36, of Charlie Company. “But as far as face time, we still get the same amount.”

There is further recommended reading on combat outposts:

1. Ramadi Combat Outposts
2. Combat Outpost Vulnerabilities
3. Recent Combat Outposts Built in Anbar (more here)
4. Combat Outposts Built in Baghdad to Accomodate the “Surge”
5. The Earlier Days of Combat Outposts in Anbar

Combat outposts were initially used in Anbar to take urban terrain which had essentially seen no Marine.  In Baghdad, this is not the case, and the parallel application of combat outposts might be dubious.  There are pros and cons associated with the use of this tactic, and it should be used circumspectly and wisely.

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I am reminded by Michael Fumento’s comment that he authored a good and ground-breaking piece on this very subject from an embed in Ramadi.  Parts of it follow, and it helps to set the context for the proper use of COPs.

The capital of al Anbar Province, Ramadi remains for U.S. troops the most violent city in Iraq. Yet as I reported in my November 27th “Return to Ramadi